Fix You
by Bella-Luna-91
Summary: Edward's a jaded musician trying to make it big while slowly spiralling down. Bella's a teacher who is never without a kind word and a smile. But a smile can hide a lot of scars and one empty bottle can distort everything. AU/AH. LEMONS.
1. Prologue

**Disclaimer- Everything Twilight belongs to Stephenie Meyer. This fanfiction belongs to me, Bella-Luna-91.**

**WARNING- This story contains graphic LEMONS and DARK THEMES from the very start. If any of this makes you uncomfortable – or you're not legally allowed to read it – then turn away now.**

* * *

**Fix You**

**Edward's a jaded musician trying to make it big while slowly spiralling down. Bella's a teacher who is never without a kind word and a smile. But a smile can hide a lot of scars and one empty bottle can distort everything. AU/AH. LEMONS.**

_**Full Summary- **__After years of failing to hit the big time, Edward is sinking into despair. His passion for music is slowly becoming passion for alcohol, cigarettes and sex. But then he meets his niece's teacher and she switches on a light in his dark life. But, as he starts to rely on her to help him get out of the rut he's gotten himself into, Edward begins to realise that the smile that almost-permanently decorates her face is a mask, and that he's not the only one leaning on their twisted relationship for support. After all, one tiny smile can hide an awful lot of pain. Can two broken people ever fix each other? And at what cost?_

* * *

_When the tears come streaming down your face  
When you lose something you can't replace  
When you love someone but it goes to waste  
could it be worse?_

_Lights will guide you home  
and ignite your bones  
And I will try to fix you_

**Fix You- Coldplay**

* * *

**Prologue**

He reached down and picked up the bottle by his foot, taking another swig before putting it back down on the floor and squinting out into the blackness that was his audience. In the dim light that came from the flame-like wall lighting, his sharp eyes picked out the blackened figures of the few people that made up his spectators.

Not that any of them were paying him any attention.

No one paid him attention here in these tiny inns that no one came to.

Since no one was watching, he leant down and took another few gulps of his drink.

Once he was looking through the bottom of an empty bottle, he kicked it under his chair where it hit the thin carpet with a soft _thud_. He flicked through the little black notebook with torn pages that was his bible.

Then, he ran a hand through his messy copper-coloured hair before reaching up and tilting the microphone down again slightly so that he could speak into it. His voice floated around the bar. "Thanks." _For nothing_, he thought bitterly. "Uh… the next song's called _November_. Um… yeah." He sighed and then re-positioned the guitar that sat across his knee, before starting to strum the right chords to the introduction.

Things had been like this for years now. Ever since his parents had died, he had been determined to make it big with the music that his mother had liked so much. But the only places who would give a valuable performing spot to a kid were hardly worth taking up. And even though he was a man now – he had ID to prove it – inside he still felt like the fourteen-year-old boy that had shut himself away in his bedroom with nothing but an acoustic guitar for company. The only difference was that he had allowed alcohol and cigarettes to join his pity party.

They helped to keep the feelings he didn't want to acknowledge at bay so that he could focus on his passion: music.

In the year after his parents had died, he had abandoned music. He had abandoned everything. As most people did when someone close to them died under tragic circumstances, he had found a way to blame himself. He had tortured himself with guilt, and then worsened it by being too stubborn to grieve.

Then, one day he had picked up his guitar, remembering how she would comment on his music and how amazing it was. He remembered promising her that he would try to make a career out of his music. At the time, he had been between jobs. Not that the jobs he was ever between were very good; an assistant here, a coffee boy there, the odd wash-up. So, he had started to play. His talented fingers made intricate love to his guitar as he sat late into the night composing, playing and singing.

After the year's break that he had taken from music, his previous passion for the rhythmic art had come back with a vengeance. And he couldn't imagine doing anything else. He had instantly started taking any jobs he could get his hands on, determined to make good of the promise he had made as a boy and become a star.

Now, more than seven years later, his passion for music had depleted and his fingers were more used to being wrapped around the neck of a bottle to drown his sorrows with than they were used to being pulled across rough strings.

Now, more than seven years later, he spent more time in random hotel rooms with random girls wrapped around his dick than he did in his own apartment, filling up the plastic ash trays and setting off the crappy smoke detectors as he composed.

Now, more than seven years later, he was beginning to wonder if his passion for music was a lost cause. He wondered if his desperation to become a star had been a waste of time.

But then, as he sang, his eyes connected with a pair through the darkness between them. The music went to the back of his mind, though somehow he continued to play, as he was lost in swirls of chocolatey brown.

He had caught her interest when he had been introducing his next song. She had just come through to the bar to get another drink. She had lost count of how many she had had now, and she knew from the woozy happy feeling that was overtaking her that she wouldn't be able to remember much in the morning.

But that was okay.

This girl wasn't here to remember; she was here to forget.

Because tonight, she had run away from her life. She had driven four and a half hours non-stop, with no idea where she had been going. She hadn't known what she was running to, only what she was running from.

And here, a small town named Forks, was where her gas had run out. So she had gotten out and come into the inn, booking a room for the night.

She had promised herself that she would get her life sorted out tomorrow. Find somewhere to stay and start setting up a new life here, far, far away from her old one. But tonight… tonight she would get smashed and forget. It would be her one night of recklessness.

And now, a handful of hours later, her body still ached and her eyes were red and puffy. She had just taken a gulp of her new drink when she had heard the voice.

"Thanks," it said. It was the most beautiful voice she had ever heard in all of her twenty-five years. It was gravel, rough and rugged and man, mixed with velvet, smooth and soft and silky. And just one word of it had her desperate to hear it whispering naughty words to her in the sanctuary of the room she had booked for the one night of irresponsibility. And then it spoke again. "Uh… the next song's called _November_. Um… yeah."

And then it started to sing. It seemed that her insides melted and started to fill her panties. His singing voice was even more beautiful. It sounded like delicious man, and sex, and pure orgasmic bliss. She crossed and uncrossed her legs, trying to get some friction where she desperately wanted it, and looked in the direction of where the voice was coming from.

And she nearly spontaneously creamed her panties when she saw the owner of the voice.

He was gorgeous, beautiful while still holding onto some kind of manliness at the same time. He had messy bronzy-coloured hair that made him look like he had just rolled out of bed. His face was downcast, looking at his guitar, so she couldn't see his eyes but his face was beautiful. His chin was sharp and defined, as were his high cheekbones. His chin and jaw had enough of a five o'clock shadow to look sexy without overdoing it and his lips were full and stunning as they moved around the words that washed over her.

She found her gaze fixed on his lips for a few minutes too long, thinking of all of the things that he could do with such a wonderful and talented mouth.

Then her eyes wandered down to his torso. Bands of subtle, yet still huge, muscle wrapped around his hair-dusted arms, and his shoulders were broad. The top few buttons of his shirt were undone, revealing a hint of a well-muscled chest and torso.

She felt the bartender's eyes on her as she eye-fucked the singer, and shot the bartender a brief smile before returning her gaze to the singer's face. This time, though, she caught his eyes. And she was instantly lost.

His eyes were a deep and glittering emerald green. They were startlingly bright through the blackness, but to say that they lit up would be a lie. She knew that they didn't merely light up; they smouldered at her from across the room.

And, as she was caught in his gaze, she felt safe for the first time so many years. The last few hellish months disappeared as she fell into this man's eyes and was overcome with a feeling of sanctuary and friendship.

They held eye contact until he had finished the song. She sat in a haze as the singer murmured softly into the microphone that he had finished his set, and then watched as he left the stage, imagining the way he would murmur her name like that as he held her and made her come undone.

When she eventually managed to shake herself out of the haze, she downed the rest of her drink and then got to her feet, wobbling slightly, before going to the back exit of the inn and going outside.

She looked up at the night sky and took a deep breath, gulping in the cold, fresh air. Then, she reached for the bag that was on her shoulder.

But a movement in her peripheral vision froze her in place. She looked over her shoulder to see someone watching her. Then she realised that it was the singer. She smiled politely at him, though her heart hammered at her chest; she couldn't smoke in front of him, could she?

"Hi," he said quietly, and she almost melted into a puddle at his feet. That delicious deep voice was directed _at her_.

"Hi," she replied, wincing when her voice came out breathy and heady and desperate.

But one corner of his mouth lifted into a dazzling, knee-melting, crooked grin. Then, he lifted his hand to his mouth and took a cigarette between his teeth, before lighting it carefully with a lighter that he pulled out of his back pocket. He took a long drag and then exhaled in a smoky cloud.

She could only stare in amazement.

After a moment, he caught her staring. His smile vanished. "Terrible habit," he muttered.

She debated how to reply to that for a moment, before going over and leaning against the wall beside him. "Yeah," she agreed as she reached into her back and got out her own packet. "You should quit." She stuck the cigarette between her lips and fumbled in her bag for a lighter. Her timid awkwardness was the opposite attitude to which she had been aiming.

"You want a light?" he asked softly.

"Please."

He pressed his own lighter into her hand. When their skin brushed, an electric current passed between their skin that was both shocking and exhilarating. They stared at each other for a few moments, but then he watched as she lit the end of her cigarette and took a drag that was even longer than the one he had taken.

They were both silent for a while. Neither had experienced a spark like that, though both had had their fair share of experience with the opposite sex.

"Thanks," she said eventually, handing his lighter back. This time, she was careful not to touch his skin.

"No problem." Then they dissolved back into silence, both of them staring up at the sky and smoking without a word.

He spoke first, when he stubbed out his cigarette. "Nice speaking to you."

She nodded in agreement. "Yeah. You're a brilliant musician."

"Thanks."

Neither of them made a move to go, though she had now stubbed out the end of her cigarette too. But then, he turned to her. He thought about asking her a question, commenting on the weather, making small talk. But he didn't want small talk. He looked deep into her eyes and saw the lust he felt reflected back at him.

So he didn't ask her anything. Or comment on the weather. Or start any small talk.

Instead, he ducked his head and kissed her.

The moment that their lips met, the electric spark that they had felt before intensified and she automatically lifted her hands and buried them in his hair. Encouraged by her response, he brought his hands up too and gently held the back of her neck, holding her face to his as he hesitantly licked along her bottom lip, begging for entrance. She tasted delicious. Like bitter vodka, and sweet candy, and sour smoke all combined to make one incredibly sensuous taste that was strangely like strawberries.

She gladly accepted him and his tongue wandered into the wet cavity of her mouth. She met him in the middle, tracing his tongue with hers and breathing heavily into his mouth. She had never wanted anything so much.

"What's your name?" he asked when they eventually broke apart. At the moment, that was all he needed to know.

"Bella," she replied breathlessly. "What's yours?" Her hands moved from his hair down his back and then round to his crotch. She ghosted a hand over his obvious arousal.

He drew in a sharp breath. "E… Edward."

Bella took a confident step closer to him and stood on her tip-toes so that she could whisper into his ear. "I have a room here," she said seductively. "And I'm all yours."

He groaned quietly. "Well then… Bella… what are we waiting for?"

She didn't answer, just connected their mouths again and kissed him briefly before pulling on his arm and leading him into the inn. Edward grabbed his guitar from the doorway as they passed and Bella led him up the stairs to the little room she had for the night. She left him by the bed and moved to the window, pulling the curtains across and shielding them from the dark night. Then she turned back and looked at him across the room.

Whenever she had gotten to this stage before, she had always suddenly gotten very nervous. But there was something about this man… the singer… _Edward_ that made her more eager.

His eyes did that smouldering thing again and she nearly whimpered.

She crossed the room in two steps and was back at his side. Neither one spoke, just stared into each others eyes. And then, Edward sat down on one side of the small, single bed and pulled her down so that she straddled his lap. She cupped his face in both of her hands and then leant in and pressed her lips gently to his, kissing him softly, gently.

His hands ghosted up and down her sides, and then he took the bottom button of her blouse between his fingers and undid it. She moaned into his mouth and deepened the kiss as he slowly moved up her blouse, tackling one button at a time until they were all undone. Then, he pushed it off of her shoulders and parted their lips so that he could look at her.

His eyes took in the expanse of her creamy skin, her tight waist and the smooth skin of her stomach. Then he lifted his gaze to her chest. He was momentarily transfixed by the soft swell of her breasts, cupped in a midnight blue bra that complimented her skin perfectly, her nipples already hard and ready for him through the material.

But then she re-captured his attention by undoing the buttons to his shirt in the same fashion and then pushing his shirt off of his shoulders.

She reached out and brushed the tips of her fingers against the hard six-pack that was just centimetres away from her skin, whimpering slightly at the feel of the defined muscles under her fingers.

She looked up at his face and caught his eyes. The second that their sights connected, neither could wait any longer. He pushed the duvet cover aside and carefully stood up with Bella in his arms before laying her gently on her back on the bed. He kicked off his jeans and shoes and helped her to pull her own off before joining her, propping himself up on either side of her and floating above her almost naked body.

Then, he reached around her and unclasped her bra, throwing it to the floor. He leant down and took her left nipple in his mouth, sucking gently.

She gasped, but grabbed his hair and lifted his head up.

He looked at her questionably.

"Don't," she whispered, lost for words. "I can't… last… I want…" she trailed off, but her hips bucked against his, telling him exactly what she wanted.

He couldn't help but smile; the lust in her eyes was so beautiful. His hands came to her waist and he pulled her blue panties – matching the bra – down her legs. When he felt how wet they were, he groaned and threw them down before he licked them or something equally as stupid.

Both intrigued by her wetness and incredibly horny, he moved his fingers back to her heated wet centre and gently pushed two of them into the tightness. They groaned simultaneously.

"You're so tight," he murmured roughly, straining to keep control. If she was this tight around his fingers, he could only imagine how she would feel around his cock.

Bella squeaked and writhed underneath his body, arching her back as he started to push his two fingers in and out of her. "God, don't stop," she hissed, her hands knotting in his hair. "Ungh, Edward."

He pushed his fingers into her with more force, venturing deeper as he added a third finger, stretching her further. Her muscles clenched around his fingers and her juices leaked over his hand as she neared her orgasm. "Edward," she whimpered loudly. "Please."

His mouth came to her breast, taking her nipple in his mouth again, though she had previously told him not to. He watched as her eyelids fluttered and her mouth closed around silent moans, and felt his dick twitch in his boxers. Determined to push her over the edge he licked around the peak of her breast and curled his fingers inside of her, hitting that sweet spot.

She gasped and then screamed out his name, her hips moving of their own accord as she clenched and unclenched around his fingers, climaxing with an intensity that Edward had never seen before. He didn't think he had ever been so turned on in his life.

Bella panted, her chest heaving as she came down from her high and then she looked up at him through excited eyes. "Wow," she breathed. Then, already eager for round two, her hands rooted at the elastic of his boxers and she pushed them aside, kicking them down with her legs. She rubbed her legs together in anticipation when she saw his massive cock spring from his pants. For a moment, she was too taken aback by his size to think coherently. But then she realised something. "Shit."

"What?"

She felt the blood come rushing up to heat her cheeks. How she could get embarrassed talking about contraception now that she was completely naked in front of a perfect stranger – who had just given her an incredible orgasm with his incredible fingers – was completely beyond her, but she was glad for the dark anyway. "No condoms," she whispered as an explanation.

But Edward reached over the side of the bed and took a small foil packet out of the pocket of his jeans. "You never know what could happen," he said in response to her surprise. For some reason, Edward didn't want to tell her about his promiscuity; he didn't want to scare her off.

She nodded, pretending to understand, as he slid it down his length and then moved to position himself above her.

"You want this?" he checked quietly.

Her reply was a guttural groan. "So much."

He almost growled and then he slowly pushed into her wetness. They groaned and grabbed at each other, skin scraping against skin as he filled her further than she'd ever been filled before. Once he was fully sheathed within her, he stilled, both of them breathing heavily and revelling in the feeling. He was right; she felt even better than he could have imagined.

But it wasn't long before they got impatient. She wriggled her hips against him, prompting him to move, and he did. He pulled out and thrust back in, filling her all over again. She moaned and tilted her head back into the pillow, her hands roaming all over him; burying in his hair, pushing on his ass, resting on the small of his back.

Her moans made Edward even more desperate. She was so tight around him that he was sure that he wasn't going to last long. But he tried. He vowed that she would come again before he did.

He increased his speed and she spread her legs wider, letting him go deeper as their sweaty skin clashed together. "Edward…" she gasped. "_God_…"

He grunted in response to her less than articulate words and pressed his lips to her neck, licking and sucking gently at the skin there, as he had done to her breast earlier. He let go of her skin for a moment so that he could whisper, "Come for me again, Bella. Come for me _now_."

Her moans of his name became more frequent and less easy to understand as she got closer to her climax. He sucked more of her skin into his mouth and bit gently on it. That did it for her. She gripped his hair and arched her back as she screamed out one last time and experienced the most intense orgasm of her life.

Her tight walls clenching around him caused Edward to explode inside of her. He stilled and moaned as they came together, hands grasping at expanses of naked skin.

They lay there, panting as they came down from their own highs. Then, Edward rolled off of her and went to dispose of the condom.

When he got back, Bella smiled at him. "Thanks," she said quietly, self-conscious and embarrassed again now that excess hormones weren't controlling her mood.

"My pleasure," he replied awkwardly. He climbed back into bed beside her, and held her in the crook of his arm as she drifted off into the first night of peaceful sleep she had had in months.

Completely unaware that he was the catalyst to such a rare and incredible thing for Bella, Edward slipped out of her bed and dressed the moment he was sure that she wouldn't wake.

He looked at her one last time, and then picked up his guitar and silently stole away into the night careful not to leave a single thing behind him but memories and a name.

He didn't realise that he had left much more than that with the girl until it was far too late.

* * *

**A/N: This'll be the only chapter in third person and will be the only real BxE lemon for a while- we get into the story now. Though that's not to say that there won't be some dreams though ;) Oh and I just want to say here that I'm British. I will try and 'Americanise' the story as much as I can but I probably will slip-up so I'm sorry in advance. I would really love to hear what you think and if you think I should continue. Thanks for reading!**


	2. Chapter 1: Alphabetised

**Disclaimer- Everything Twilight belongs to Stephenie Meyer. This fanfiction belongs to me, Bella-Luna-91.**

**WARNING- This story contains graphic LEMONS and DARK THEMES from the very start. If any of this makes you uncomfortable – or you're not legally allowed to read it – then please turn away now.**

* * *

"_Everything happens for a reason. People change so that you can learn to let go. Things go wrong so that you appreciate them when they're right. You believe lies so you eventually learn to trust no one but yourself, and sometimes good things fall apart, so that better things can fall together." _**-Marilyn Monroe**

* * *

**Chapter 1 - Alphabetised**

**Bella**

***~*Two Months Later*~***

"_And Jodie Miller's case goes to court today, a year and a half after the attempted murder…" _I awoke to the sound of the eight o'clock morning news alert blaring from the radio. It took a minute for my sleep-fogged brain to remember that that wasn't right.

"Shit!" I exclaimed when I realised, shooting out of bed for the shower. I had to be at work in just over half an hour and it would take twenty minutes just to drive there.

I showered in record time, ran around my apartment gathering the day's lesson plans and games and then checked my hair in the mirror, adjusting my skirt before picking up my bag and heading for the old beat-up Chevy truck that my Dad, Charlie, had gotten me for my seventeenth birthday. I ran through the light rain, sighing at the weather again. I had come to learn that Forks' weather range was pretty limited. It was either: 'a little bit rainy', 'a lot rainy', or 'a thunderstorm'. Sun was a rarity here; it hadn't shown its pretty face in the whole two months in which I had been the 3,176th person inhabiting the teeny tiny town.

I cursed quietly when I dropped my bag and the contents spilled onto the damp tarmac by my truck. I bent down and started picking it all up. The last item I came across was the little black book that had been in my purse for two long months now.

I paused by the door of my truck, flicking my fingers gently over the pages. Whenever I touched this book, it felt wrong. Like I was holding someone else's diary. And, in a way, I was. When I had first discovered it as I was packing up to leave the inn, I had read through some of it in search of a name that wasn't there. And the lyrics that were scribbled down on the worn pages seemed a lot more personal than any old diary. Even if he did perform them to an audience, this was them in raw form. This wasn't how his songs were meant to be seen. I desperately wanted to return it to its rightful owner, but I didn't have a way of contacting him, not even a full name. So I hoped that I might bump into him. Judging by what I had already seen of the town, such a coincidence was not highly unlikely.

Despite the huge amount of alcohol I had consumed that night in order to forget, I still hadn't. My memory of the night as a whole was hazy, but I remembered_ him_ with crystal clear clarity. I remembered his gravelly velvet voice – a living, breathing oxymoron – and his beautiful green eyes. And I definitely remembered the mind-blowing orgasms he had given me; my subconscious made sure that I'd never forget _that_. Whenever I wasn't having nightmares about the life I was trying so hard to put behind me and forget, I was having highly inappropriate sex dreams about the singer.

But, though I could remember everything about him right down to the taste of his lips, the way his warm mouth felt on my breast and how far he had filled me… all I really _knew_ was his name. Edward.

And now, two months on, he was still the image behind my lids when I fell asleep and the thoughts in my head when my mind wasn't otherwise thoroughly occupied. Which, admittedly, was for the majority of the time.

It was because of these dreams that I had overslept this morning. I had taken to avoiding sleep as a general rule. I lived through most of the night on vast quantities of caffeine and cigarettes. Then, usually at about three or four am, my body would give up and I'd be so exhausted that I would sleep without dreaming. Which was the intention. The down side was that I had only been in this apartment for a month and a half and it already reeked of coffee and smoke. Nice.

I hadn't even _wanted_ to start smoking. But it had all started when Jacob had left a packet on the kitchen worktop, forgetting about them when he stormed out after another argument. I had thought about how Jake smoked when he was stressed, and decided to give it a try. It was disgusting. The cigarette tasted vile and I had puked my entire breakfast into the sink. But he was right; once the after-effects of the vomiting had passed, smoking was relaxing.

Stupidly, I had been addicted ever since.

With a sigh, I pushed the little black book into my looks-bigger-on-the-inside purse, next to a pack of cigarettes, and then climbed into my truck.

I pulled into the Forks Elementary parking lot just five minutes before my students were supposed to arrive- technically ten minutes late. Smoothing down my skirt, I took a deep breath before going into the staff room. My assistant, Jessica Stanley, was already there (though she didn't have to be for another hour) and I fought back a groan at seeing her mass of curly brown hair.

"Hey, Bella!" she greeted enthusiastically. Jessica was still in college and still full of the enthusiasm that college students seemed to have coursing through their veins. She worked part-time at Forks Elementary as her placement to gain experience and was fondly referred to as 'that idiot helping in first grade' amongst the rest of the staff. That just made me grateful that I had been accepted into the staff body when I had started working here at the beginning of the first semester.

"Morning," I sighed and then turned to head for the coffee machine to wake me up. I had missed out on my morning energy shot thanks to oversleeping.

But Jessica stopped me. "I already got your coffee!" she said brightly. "Black, no sugar, no lid but keep the stirry stick thing and filled up only to the halfway mark." She shuffled guiltily when I quirked an eyebrow at her as I took the coffee. "I watched how you drink your coffee so I can make you one so that you'll give me a good report," she admitted.

_Shit_, something else to add to my to-do list. How on earth was I going to write a report on Jessica without using the word 'stupid'? Maybe 'for what she lacks in terms of intelligence, she makes up for with enthusiasm and good instincts for evading various items of flying stationary'. Hmm… too cliché?

I blinked and snapped out of my trance by smiling at Jess. "Of course I'll give you a good report." And it was the truth. Yeah, Jess certainly wasn't the brightest crayon in the box – in fact, I frequently wondered how she had gotten the qualifications to get into a teacher training college – but she was eager and brilliant with the kids and, as long as you were going to spend you whole life teaching children how to count to twenty, then you didn't really need too many brain cells.

It was because of that that my Mum, Renee, had frequently berated me for making a poor career choice when I had been accepted into the teacher-training college back in Portland, Oregon, but I had ignored her and continued with the training. Ever since I could remember, I had wanted to teach small children. They were all unique, and had such brilliant and inspired ideas.

And I liked to think that I had been right to persevere. When I had started in the kindergarten class back in Eugene Elementary, I had instantly fallen in love with the job. It was difficult, yes, but it was more rewarding than I could ever have imagined. Every single day was as different as each of the children I had taught. And both every day and every child was amazing in their own little ways. Even the more… difficult ones.

I had been teaching in the first grade class at Forks Elementary for the last three weeks now. I was only one week away from the first parent-teacher conference to discuss how well the kids were settling in and, if I was honest, I was absolutely freaking terrified. It was like meeting the boyfriend's parents for the first time… but a thousand times worse because, when it was a boyfriend's parents, you weren't responsible for their child; you were just dating them. I was responsible for these children for almost seven hours of the day every weekday. And the children were their worlds… for the most part. A lot of people presumed that the worst thing was meeting overprotective parents who mollycoddled their children. It wasn't; at least you could tell that they loved their children. The worst kind of parents to meet were the ones that just didn't care. It made me so angry that I wanted to smash their heads together. Or call the social. It would be especially difficult to sit by with the bunch of children in this class. Although I was still finding my feet with this new job, I had already fallen in love with every single one of these kids.

That, however, didn't make the job any less exhausting.

The bell rang then, signalling that we had to go down and let the children in, and Jessica shot me a small smile and left the staff room to go and give the classroom a once-over before it was destructed by twenty-six small children. I swallowed the rest of my coffee in a few short gulps as I followed, noticing how weary I felt since the energy-shot hadn't kicked in yet.

By the time I got down to the door, Jessica was already struggling with a little girl who was crying and clinging tightly to her mother's leg. I binned my polystyrene cup with a sigh and went over to help.

It was going to be a long day.

###

By lunchtime, we had done handwriting exercises, painted letters of the alphabet and told a one-word story as a class (story-telling was our topic for the month) and I was already exhausted. I opened the door to let the kids out to play and then collapsed into my chair. As I waited for Jessica to get back from her lunch break so that I could go out for my own, I opened my file and reminded myself of the lesson plan for the afternoon. Ah, yes, I was going to ask them to draw a picture of their parents and do a presentation in small groups.

This was a particularly clever (or so I thought) scheme of mine to learn about the children's parents just before parents evening, so that I could brace myself for those that I knew that I would have to restrain myself from attacking.

I glanced over my plan, and smiled at the organisation. I was a very organised person. Angela had called me obsessive compulsive and tried to persuade me into getting checked for the disorder, but I refused. I told her that she was being ridiculous, but the truth was that I didn't need a doctor to tell me that there was something wrong with me.

Over the past six years, I had been pushed into being perfect more and more as time passed. At home there couldn't be a thing out of place or I'd be punished. There could be no hint of something being unclean or I'd regret it. The concept of perfection was drummed into me so strongly that even now I couldn't bear to see something out of line. No, it went further than that. I was terrified of disorganisation.

And that was why every aspect of my life was structured.

Everything in my apartment was ordered alphabetically, from my CDs and DVDs and my labelled kitchen cupboards to my bedroom. Everything in my bedroom was in an alphabetical order. You know, the desk had to be after the bed kind of thing.

My apartment was also perfectly clean. Even the two ashtrays I owned were emptied as soon as something dirtied them and they were cleaned every night even if they weren't that dirty. The TV magazines were stacked in a neat pile underneath the coffee table and the coasters were kept in a holder and only taken out when it was absolutely necessary. My wardrobe was colour coordinated, not that there was much in there to start with, and my cupboards and drawers all had labels on, stating what was inside. Well, that wasn't counting the embarrassing drawer that contained things like tampons and vibrators; that drawer remained unmarked by my obsessive tendencies.

My entire days and weeks were meticulously planned out on a board that hung on the wall of my kitchen. Everything I had planned for the day was marked out on the board with time quotas and everything. Any time quota that wasn't filled scared the heck out of me- because that was time that I could sit and remember. And remembering was bad. So I filled up my time with meaningless activities- like cleaning ashtrays. And I could _not_ deviate from the timetable. Ever.

Thankfully for me, my work life reflected my home life.

My classroom was perfectly tidy and clean whenever children weren't destructing it. The cupboards and drawers there were also labelled and my office was alphabetised.

The lesson plans I made and double-checked – sometimes even triple-checked – every night before school were as tight and to-the-minute as they could be with a bunch of five-and-six-year-olds.

That was the one disadvantage to being a teacher. Children were messy. You could persuade and teach them otherwise as much as you liked, but it was just a fact of life. Besides, children were _meant_ to be messy. If a child hadn't fallen in a pond, or gotten very muddy, or gotten grass stains on white clothes at some point or other, then they simply weren't a child. Period. So, for that reason, the children's mess was completely bearable. I didn't mind if they messed something up at all. It just meant that I had to clean up after them. Because if I didn't, I would face the consequences.

The physical consequences weren't around anymore, now that I had run away, but that didn't mean that everything didn't have consequences anyway. I had had asthma since I was a child, but it had never really brought me up short until recently. Now, if there was one thing out of line, I would start panicking. A combination of the panic and my shitty smoking habit meant that when I started panicking, I often ended up having an asthma attack, or a panic attack, or sometimes both.

I had suffered from panic attacks for almost three years. I had had the first one the very same day that Jake had changed. We both knew what the catalyst to his change and my panic had been, but neither of us had brought it up since that night. He just didn't want to, and I had been too scared.

Since then, life had just gotten worse. I had taken it all – all of his shit – for six years in total, and the last three of those years had been a living hell. But his threats had kept me there. It wasn't until I realised the gravity of the situation that I had finally snapped and snuck away.

I had driven and driven, almost blinded with tears, until I ran out of gas. And then I had called a company to tow me to the nearest gas station. I had filled up my truck and driven to the nearest town. Forks. I had never heard of it at the time, and I had been hesitant about setting up home in a place I didn't know anything about. But now I realised how lucky I had been. Now I realised that it was better to pick a place that no one would know about. Because it made it harder for him to find me and fulfil his promises.

Two months on, I didn't regret leaving. I missed Eugene. I missed Angela and Ben, who had been the closest friends I had had for my whole life. I missed my mom and Phil. I even missed Jake a little bit. But the pain of missing them was a lot more bearable than staying with _him_. I had no idea what he had told the few people who would notice that I wasn't there. But there had been no news coverage, no nothing, so he must have fed them some kind of line. I didn't know. The only thing I did know was that I was never going back.

Maybe someday I'd call Angela again, or Mom, but not now. It was too close, the wounds too fresh, and I didn't know if I could look them in the eye and tell them the truth that they deserved about the man they had thought was so right for me. I didn't know what I'd tell them anyway; especially considering that I had no idea where he had told them I'd disappeared to. Perhaps he had painted me as the bad guy? Perhaps they thought I was dead?

Whatever. That wasn't my life anymore. I was here, in Forks, and I was untraceable. And all of that – all of my old life – was going to be suppressed at the back of my mind until I forgot it. I was determined not to remember.

Just then, a little tap on my hand brought me back to the present, startling me slightly. I shook my head and then looked up at the little girl who stood in front of me. "Miss Swan?" she asked quietly. The quiet was unusual for this girl; she was one of the loudest in the class.

"Yes, Hattie?" I said politely.

"I hurt my knee," she whispered, blinking her watery hazel eyes at me.

"Oh, sweetie," I said, getting out of my chair and kneeling in front of her so that I could take a look at her knee. It was a scrape; a surface graze. A little blood dribbled out of her dirty knee and I admired how brave she was being for a small girl. When I had been that age I would have seen the blood and completely freaked out. I still didn't like blood so much, but I was getting over it. "Hmm. I think this is going to need surgery," I teased with a smile.

Luckily, she saw through my joke and giggled adorably. "You're so silly, Miss Swan! I just need a wet paper towel."

I smiled at her. "Right you are, little Miss Whitlock. Can you walk to the sink or shall I carry you?"

"I'll walk." She hobbled across the room to the little sink by the window.

I went to her side and hoisted her up onto the desktop so that I could get at her knee more easily. "How did you know what to do, Hattie?" I asked, distracting her as I wet a paper-towel.

She reached up and fiddled with a strand of her honey blonde hair as she replied. "I fall over a lot. My mommy calls me her cute little klutz." She pouted indignantly. "I'm not a cute little klutz."

I bit back a smile as I dabbed her knee with the paper towel. "Do you want to hear a secret?" I offered.

Hattie nodded eagerly, her eyes lighting up.

"My mommy used to call me her cute little klutz too." Well… it had been more of an 'oh, Bella, you're so clumsy' but the sentiment had been the same.

The little girl gasped slightly and I glanced up at her face to check that I hadn't hurt her. But she was grinning. "Really? Wow!" Her grin was really cute; crooked and a little familiar…

I nodded in reply to her question, pursing my lips as I tried to remember where I had seen that smile before.

"That is _so_ cool!" Hattie exclaimed, practically vibrating with excitement. This was more like the Hattie I knew and loved.

"Mmm hmm," I agreed vaguely. I swiped the towel across her knee once more. "There you go," I said, "I think your leg's okay now. It's not gonna fall off, anyway."

Hattie hesitated again then.

"What is it?"

She ducked her head and muttered, "Can I have a band-aid? Mommy usually gives me one when I fall over. She says that they are signs of my battle scars and make me look like a tough cookie."

A smile stretched across my face. "Of course you can. You can pick what colour if you want to."

Hattie's face lit up again at the prospect of choosing the colour of her band-aid.

_Thank you Lord for novelty band-aids._

Jessica returned to the classroom just as I was ushering Hattie back out to play.

"What happened?" Jess asked, looking disappointed that she hadn't been the one to play doctor to an injured child. In the short time that I had known Jessica, I had gathered that she liked to be needed. She liked to be depended on, even if it was just by a small child with a cut knee.

"Oh, just a little scraped knee," I replied casually as I put the first-aid box back on the shelf. "No big deal. You're okay to cover here now, right?" I checked, as I did everyday.

"Yep." Jess nodded and reached into her bag for the book she had brought today. The books that she brought in were usually fat romance novels full of idealised notions of love and perfect relationships and tons upon tons of dirty sex. They were light, easy reads and probably made Jess sigh in contentment as she put herself in the point of view in whichever gorgeous leggy blonde got lucky in that particular book. Today's read was the latest Karen Rose. I couldn't say I was surprised. I had read them all – I was a big reader and read pretty much anything – but those kind of books were… unfulfilling reads for me. I preferred the classics. Jane Austen, the Bronte sisters and Charles Dickens were more my kind of reads. That made me sound like a bit of a snob, though, so I mostly kept it to myself.

"Okay, I'll see you in half an hour," I said, choosing not to comment on her book choice. I didn't wait for her to reply before slipping out of the classroom and heading for my truck out in the lot. I _really_ wanted some kind of fast food, but I'd have to drive all the way to Port Angeles to get anything good, so, instead, I went to the Thriftway around the corner and tackled the big store to find some lunch.

I came out again armed with a bag of apples that would get me through until the following week and a large bag of ready-salted chips. That was the closest I was gonna get to junk food in Forks and I was gonna have to lump it. I went to the gardens near the Thriftway to eat, taking up a bench and digging _Mansfield Park_ out of my bag to read as I ate. It was lovely and peaceful for about ten minutes, but then a woman came up and asked if she could sit next to me. I moved my things and glanced up at her, and was momentarily stunned.

The woman was beautiful. Like _gorgeous_ kind of beautiful. She had long golden hair that curled halfway down her back and startling blue eyes- the kind that you only saw in children's picture books. Both her face and figure were perfect- her face was angular, but still soft, and her figure was curvy in all the right places. She wouldn't have looked amiss on a catwalk.

Abruptly feeling insignificantly plain, I lifted my book up and hid my face from any passer-bys who might look over and consider me ugly next to this goddess of a woman. Which I knew that, realistically, I was.

But then her phone rang.

"Hi again," she said, instantly animated. "Sorry about that; I lost signal in the trees. But, anyway, he was gorgeous Ali! Those biceps… I just wanted to jump him there and then."

The volume of her phone was turned up so loud that I could hear the person on the other end laugh and then say, "That would _not_ have been appropriate, Rosalie."

I felt uncomfortable now, ear wigging on this woman's conversation, so I dug my headphones out of my bag and stuck them in my ears. I didn't actually turn my iPod _on_ as such; this conversation was much more interesting than the dated music I had on my dated iPod. I just pretended like I couldn't hear anything, and continued to be nosey.

"Yeah." This Rosalie sounded wistful. "He was awful nice though, Al."

"As you've said. I don't want to hear anymore about what he looked like. What happened? Juicy details please!" her friend trilled.

Rosalie smiled slightly. "Well, you know Royce took me to that club?" She didn't wait for a reply. "Halfway through the night, he started to get _really_ drunk. Like absolutely pissed, and he started coming on to me. Of course, you know that I can't stand the man so I told him to leave it, and he started to get violent, cursing and shaking his fist at me.

"Just as he was about to lash out, Emmett just appeared out of nowhere and escorted Royce out. I mean, I thought Roy was strong but this guy… he just lifted him like he weighed nothing! Then he came back and… oh, Alice, he was so _sweet_!" she gushed. "He asked if I was okay, and if I needed someone to walk me home and if I wanted a drink or to just talk it out. And you know what I did?"

"What?"

"I blushed and told him I was fine. _Why?_" she wailed, looking positively disgusted with herself. "Why did I do that? I had to go and get all shy when the hottest guy I've ever met offers to buy me a drink…"

I heard Alice gasp. "You got _shy?_" She sounded disbelieving. "Since when do _you_ get shy, Rose?"

"I know!" she groaned, letting her head fall into her hands.

"Sounds like you like him."

"No kidding," Rosalie agreed.

"So what're you gonna do?" her friend asked.

"I have to go back sometime. I didn't get a number, or even a surname… But, it can't be too hard to find one person in Port Angeles, can it? It's not _that_ much bigger than Forks."

_Huh, good luck with that; I can't even locate a Greek God _in_ fucking Forks. You wouldn't have thought it possible to miss that kinda thing, but, apparently, it is._

Rosalie sighed, and then changed the subject. "And thanks so much for taking Luke last night. How was he, by the way? I never asked."

"Oh, Lucas was fine," Alice replied. She sounded annoyed now. "It was Edward that was the fucktard last night."

My hand froze halfway through pretending to turn a page.

_Calm down, it's probably a coincidence_.

Oh really? Edward is not a very common name- especially not in a town as small as this.

_Shut up and go back to being a nosey cow already._

I did as the voice in my head told me to, though I wasn't sure that that was the best idea.

Rosalie rolled her beautiful eyes. "Oh, God, not again?"

"Yes, again." Alice sighed. "I confronted him about it this morning, though."

"What did he say?"

"Not much. I mean, I'm trying to understand, Rose, really I am. But he's been this way for so long now and… he has to get back on track. He's gonna need his independence someday- I'm not letting him sponge off of me for the rest of his life." She cleared her throat. "I get that he's depressed. I get that he's possibly an alcoholic. I get that life is pretty shitty for him right now. But what I don't get is why he won't get help. But, when I spoke to him this morning, I said that…"

I stopped listening then.

_See? Depressed and an alcoholic- this really can't be him._

I pursed my lips, unwilling to admit that I hadn't just found my prince, but the voice was right. My Edward hadn't seemed depressed when I had met him. But, then again, I had spent all of an hour with him.

I glanced at my watch, and leapt up in surprise, thrusting my book and my headphones into my bag. I noticed Rosalie jump out of the corner of my eye at my sudden movement, but I didn't turn back; I had to get back on time.

That was something else.

I couldn't be late. Ever.

I cringed at the memories that hovered around that word, and then shoved them to the back of my mind. I was never going to get back to the school if I remembered. I'd end up sat in my truck with an arm around my chest holding myself together and having another panic attack. That had happened too much recently.

I pasted the kind smile on my face and practised holding it there as I drove. Because I knew better than anyone that you had to have a lot of practice if you were going to be perfect.

* * *

**A/N: Thank you so much for the fantastic feedback! I really appreciate it so much. Again… penny for your thoughts?**


End file.
